Sweaty Optimization Guide (Low Input Lag/High FPS/Competitive Gaming)

[yeesecretalias]

Hello all.

This forum was quite helpful in my quest for competitive gaming, low input lag, high FPS, and smoothness in the past. I've decided to drop my own compiled research for anyone interested, as knowledge is best shared!

This project started out with a couple of friends after we got tired of subpar, random, and poor performances out of PC games. We went through a ton of information on the internet to arrive at settings that work fairly well. I've tested 20+ games at this point and all of them run smoothly and without any complaints (with objective FPS/latency data through CapFrameX). There is minimal noticeable input lag on my system, everything feels ultra responsive/instant, and gaming is a lot more fun. Whereas prior to this - it was a stuttering mess and felt delayed.

https://tinyurl.com/sweatypcguide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ILu ... xYJgQ4sxDM (non-shortened link)

Parts of the guide are game-specific for the games I play (Unreal Tournament 4/Aimlab/Kovaaks) and can be ignored, but the rest of the information should have value to everyone. It's also oriented around Nvidia GPU + Intel CPU since this is what our PCs have, and therefore could be tested.

Benchmarks for frametimes 0-10ms graph various games: https://imgur.com/a/UmQoM2D
Benchmarks for various games/Latencymon: https://imgur.com/a/eN67YYJ
Part 2: https://imgur.com/a/NznZCkg

HF, and let me know if there's any feedback/questions!

[Zodasaur]

Zero input lag! That's incredible you managed to achieve this. How may I ask we're you able to eliminate the 2ms of input lag from your 390hz monitor? I read through your guide that you posted, but it doesn't cover this aspect to get to 0 input lag.

[yeesecretalias]

Zero input lag! That's incredible you managed to achieve this. How may I ask we're you able to eliminate the 2ms of input lag from your 390hz monitor? I read through your guide that you posted, but it doesn't cover this aspect to get to 0 input lag.

Bad wording, I'll rephrase that to "minimal noticeable input lag" .

[sherifmagdy32]

Thanks for sharing

[InputLagger]

Zero input lag! That's incredible you managed to achieve this. How may I ask we're you able to eliminate the 2ms of input lag from your 390hz monitor? I read through your guide that you posted, but it doesn't cover this aspect to get to 0 input lag.

Zero input lag is not possible by physics laws

[Zodasaur]

Huh? Post #1 disappeared that had the optimization guide. I wonder what happened.

[jorimt]

Huh? Post #1 disappeared that had the optimization guide. I wonder what happened.

The OP edited their post(s), and since they are a new member, their first few posts require manual moderation (including edits), thus it went back into the queue until I just approved it again.

[yeesecretalias]

Edited previously to remove misinformation due to poor choice of wording. Lmk if there's anything else, it's hard to get large quantities of information right on the first try .
Some objective stats of various games, their FPS / estimated input lag & latencymon data.
https://imgur.com/a/eN67YYJ
If anyone has any suggestions for tests or games, I can run them.

[Slender]

you seriously use useplatformtick yes + 0.5ms timer in 2023??
and msi afterberner adds dpc latency on lastest nvidia drivers, use reg tweak for lock freq.
anyway, thanks for this.

[yeesecretalias]

you seriously use useplatformtick yes + 0.5ms timer in 2023??
and msi afterberner adds dpc latency on lastest nvidia drivers, use reg tweak for lock freq.
anyway, thanks for this.

No difference on my system between afterburner on/off. I tested many times with longer time frames than 6-7 minutes, but this is sufficient. There are few things that actually affect DPC latency (drivers/timers/powerplan and power saving features/bad apps).
I have found no reg tweaks that actually lock the frequency correctly.
After applying them, they still bounce around like crazy if you check any info tool, but if you have a link that worked for you I'd love it.

Also the reason why I use timer tool is because 1803 is the last OS with a specific timer system (and overall lower latency than newer windows OS versions), and setting the timer res works nicely especially for older games. There is way too much debate on the net regarding timers and thousands of different opinions/system variation regarding it, so just use whatever runs best on your config.